Liberty Industrial carried out the deconstruction of Rio Tinto’s High Intensity Smelting facility in Kwinana, Western Australia. The project involved the dismantling and relocation of almost half of the Hismelt plant.

The award-winning project was the first of its kind with the project involving the complex dismantling of significant components of industrial plant; never before has a dismantling project of this scale and complexity been attempted in Australia.

Deconstruction works commenced in January 2013 with the dismantling phase of the project. In total, more than 7,000 tonnes of industrial plant and equipment including four bulk shipments of over 18,000 cubic metres and 280 shipping containers of plant and equipment were salvaged and shipped 7600 kilometres away to Shandong Province in China.

Over 2,000 bulk units were methodically dismantled, cleaned to export standard, match marked, labelled, recorded and packed, with each item given clear instructions on how to be reassembled in China.

So there I was, minding my own bees wax, when my computer pinged to tell me that an email had arrived. And this one was different; very different.

For one thing, it wasn’t offering to sell me viagra. For another, it wasn’t accusing me of being Mr Moody Pants for reporting another demolition accident or threatening to “duff me up good and proper” for doing my job as a journalist. Nope, this email contained an exciting (you could tell it was exciting because it was written ENTIRELY IN CAPITALS) and heartfelt (you could tell it was heartfelt because it began “To My Dearest One”) offer.

Turns out my ship has come in; I’ve hit the jackpot; struck gold AND paydirt; I am about to be holding more folding than the Maitre d’ at a trade association’s anniversary luncheon.

NorthStar Group Services, Inc. announced today that it has completed the purchase of WRS Infrastructure & Environment, Inc. The acquisition expands NorthStar’s environmental remediation and civil construction capabilities.

“With safety and our customers as our top priorities, we believe NorthStar is better positioned to deliver on our commitment to provide best in class environmental, demolition and emergency response services to our clients everywhere.”

With the addition of WRS, NorthStar acquires specialized expertise in environmental remediation, site assessments, water resource management and flood control. NorthStar and WRS serve public and private clients in the government, power, industrial, manufacturing, mining, oil and gas sectors and beyond. “Combining our national networks will give NorthStar additional resources to help our clients throughout the United States and globally solve their most complex environmental issues,” said Scott E. State, P.E., CEO of NorthStar. “With safety and our customers as our top priorities, we believe NorthStar is better positioned to deliver on our commitment to provide best in class environmental, demolition and emergency response services to our clients everywhere.”

“Joining forces with NorthStar marks the next great chapter in the history of WRS,” said Richard Santello, CEO of WRS. “WRS’ technical expertise complements NorthStar’s extensive service offerings and our client’s will undoubtedly benefit from NorthStar’s deep resources and knowledge.”

With combined annual gross revenue over $600 million and over 45 offices nationwide, NorthStar is the world’s foremost provider of environmental remediation, deconstruction and demolition, nuclear decommissioning, emergency response and asset recovery management.

The demolition of Ninfield Road Bridge has begun as the construction of the new Bexhill to Hastings Link Road continues.

The existing bridge is too low and narrow to allow traffic on the new link road to pass underneath it. The new structure will be a single span bridge keeping the existing brickwork retaining walls.

Work to install the foundation piles for the replacement bridge has recently been completed. Services, including electricity and phone lines, have been moved to a temporary bridge structure.

Bob Pape, the project manager for the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road said: “The controlled demolition of this structure is an important milestone for the project and I would like to thank road users and residents for their patience while this important work is carried out.”

On the face of it, exclusion zones are pretty much the same whether you’re from Surrey, Scotland, Savannah or Saudi Arabia. But there is one marked difference between the first three and the final one.

In most places in the world, the impending implosion or felling of a structure is pre-empted by a period of silence as interested parties look on from a safe distance. In Saudi Arabia, it appears, they have no time for such formalities and just go about their daily business. Indeed, the only allowance they seem to make for the building that’s falling right by them is to walk a little bit faster:

Crews demolished a Floral City house that was once overrun with cats living in filth.

Last month, animal services found 133 cats in the home in addition to five cat skulls.

Most of those cats are still in the shelter, while 33 had to be euthanized due to their conditions and temperament. Three were adopted by rescues.

The owner, John Callagy, and his girlfriend are accused of leaving the cats without food or water, according to county officials. They were charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty.

The county deemed the home a health and safety hazard and decided it needed to be torn down. Callagy did not contest the decision to demolish and surrendered the house to the city, according to county officials.

Well it seems that our unerring ability to tickle the nerve of the global demolition industry remains undaunted.

Our latest edition of This Week in Demolition, in which we once again bemoaned the lack of women of influence in the demolition sector, has been met head on by former IDE president Dr Terry Quarmby. And, even though we don’t necessarily agree with all of what he has to say, we respect his opinion above most others in the industry and are, therefore, delighted to air his response (with his permission) here:

As much as I like to agree with you on many subject matters, I have to strongly disagree regarding women in the UK demolition industry at senior level.

For one, Holly Bennett is to be the next chair of the London and Southern Region of NFDC and she will no doubt go on to become the National President.

At IDE we had a woman president over 10 years ago, in Mary Bradley, way ahead of the yanks and Europe, as always. We also have had the IDE national secretary as a woman, which is a very influential and difficult role, for a goodly number of years now.

There are also a number of women running UK demolition companies very successfully too, i.e. Sharon Haskell, Julia Comley and a couple of others whose names escape me.

So we are not behind anyone. We are in fact way ahead of the game, as the saying goes and long may it be that way,

Franklin County will spend about $1 million less than officials estimated to knock down Veterans Memorial.

County building officials have recommended that the county commissioners approve a contract with S.G. Loewendick & Sons, of Grove City, to demolish Veterans Memorial and prepare the site for the construction of the Ohio Veterans Memorial and Museum, which will replace it. The commissioners will vote on the contract this morning.

Loewendick’s bid for the work came in at almost $1 million less than the about $1.85 million the county expected to spend on the demolition, but it was not the lowest bid. Lowendick said it would cost $897,000 to do the job.

The lowest of the 12 bids the county received came from a company called Homrich, located outside of Detroit, for $673,000. But county officials found several problems with Homrich’s bid, including that it did not account for all the elements of the demolition and did not define a timeline and completion date for the work, according to a letter the county sent the company.